eitful iridescence of refinement; and the
ruins of pagan Rome had no power to move his heart, preoccupied as it
was with horror at the monstrous wickedness which made desolate the
very sanctuary of God. When he ascended on his knees the famous Scala
Santa, the holy staircase near the Lateran Palace--supposed to have
belonged to Pilate's house in Jerusalem, down whose marble steps our
Saviour walked, wearing the crown of thorns and the emblems of mock
royalty which the soldiers had put upon him--he seemed to hear a voice
whispering to him the words, "The just shall live by faith." Instantly
the scales fell from his eyes, and he saw the miserable folly of the
whole proceeding; and like a man suddenly freed from fetters, he rose
from his knees, and walked firm and erect to the foot of the stairs.
He could not remain another day in the city. Returning to his
monastery, he there celebrated mass for the last time, and departed on
the morrow with the bitter words, "Adieu, O city, where everything is
permitted but to be a good man!" Ten years later he burnt the Bull of
the Pope in the public square of Wittemberg, and all Europe rang with
the tocsin of the Reformation. I never passed that venerable monastery
without thinking of the austere German monk and his glorious work; and
the old well-known motto of the Reformation which had been his
battle-cry in many a good fight of faith received new power and
meaning from the associations of the place. To the enlightenment
received there, paving the way for religious and political liberty
throughout Christendom, I owed the privilege of preaching in Rome.

The Presbyterian church--I speak of the past, for since my visit the
church has been removed to a more suitable site within the walls--is
a little distance farther on, on the opposite side of the street. You
enter by a gateway, and find yourself in an open space surrounded with
luxuriant hedges in full bloom, and large flowering shrubs, and
commanding a fine view of Monte Mario and the open country in that
direction, including the meadows where the noble Arnold of Brescia was
burnt to death, and his ashes cast into the Tiber. The church is a
square, flat-roofed eastern-looking building, in the inside tastefully
painted in imitation of panels of Cipollino marble; and on the neat
pulpit is carved the symbol of the Scotch Church, the burning bush and
its motto, nowhere surely more appropriate than in the place where the
Christian faith h